A Challenging Conversation
By Caroline Blanchard
Yaoundé, Cameroon — “Are you a volunteer? I don’t like you volunteers. Your work is useless.”
I hadn’t seen the young man arrive. He sat in front of me in a centre that provides activities for children who live and sleep on the streets. Every Tuesday, I come here to read and play games with these children, to try and interest them in learning to read, to tell them stories, and to allow them to dream.
I was in the middle of reading a story to a boy, although in fact the boy was falling asleep. Annoyed at being insulted for my volunteer work, I said, “Since my work is useless, I will continue reading with this youngster.”
“Your work here is useless”, he repeated. “Look at this boy: he has been coming here for five years, and the only reason he comes is to get the coins at the end. Do you really think he comes here to read? No, he comes because at the end he will get some cash. I did the same for years. Did it change my life? No, not at all.”
When young people or children take part in activities in the centre, at the end they receive two hundred CFA francs (about thirty cents), the cost of a plate of rice with some sauce. Now the young man’s questioning started to interest me. I stopped what I was doing and listened to him, even if he was a bit aggressive. He repeated: “I don’t like you volunteers. Your work is useless. It doesn’t help us get off the streets.”
Indeed, what is the point of coming here every Tuesday to help children to read — children who have dropped out of school and live on the streets? We can provide them with a moment of peace, help them discover a desire to read and to learn, and offer them activities that allow them to experience the pleasure and pride of a job well done. But don’t these goals seem a bit ridiculous, considering the violence that children experience on the streets?
A few days later, I arranged to meet the young man, J.C., outside of reading time to allow me more time to understand his story. He told me that he grew up in Gabon in a family with no problems. He was a little unruly as a child. When he was 15 years old, his grandmother took him on holiday to Cameroon with one of his uncles, to his mother’s village near Bafia. “On holiday” — that’s what they told him. He was to spend the summer holidays in the village in Cameroon, then return to Gabon for the beginning of the school term.
But once they arrived in Cameroon, his grandmother took his passport away and there was no question of returning. J.C. couldn’t bear the fact that his family had betrayed him. “If they had told me, at least I could have said goodbye to my friends.” Outraged, hurt, feeling despised and worthless to his family, he took to the streets. He ended up in Yaoundé.
He spoke of his time in the centre where we met: “I took part in the activities, but I didn’t care; I just sat in the corner. I only wanted the two hundred francs. Giving us money, that kills us. I quickly learned how to behave for someone to take pity on you — you promise them that you will work, but that you just have a small problem. You cry, you insist, and they give you money. You promise that will be the last time.”
“I learned that you have to find the solution within yourself”, J.C. said. He is currently off the streets, even if his situation remains insecure. He is staying with a man who employs him to work in his whisky business between Cameroon and Gabon. One week a month, he goes to the Gabon border to get supplies, which he then sells in Yaoundé. The man pays him each week.
What J.C. told me gave me the strength to go further with the young people I meet in the centre, and to look for an alternative to handing out money. It’s difficult. There is one teenager in such distress that I’m reluctant just to open the purse. His partner is about to give birth. He is unemployed, without income, and already has three children he is unable to feed. But I am convinced — and J.C. reinforces my conviction — that another type of relationship is possible. For this young man to keep his dignity, our first meeting must not be based on an exchange of money.
J.C. is a bit different from the other young people who come to the centre: he spent a long time at school and with his family, acquiring knowledge up to the age of 15. A lot of the young people I work with did not have this security. They took to the streets when they were very young, often before the age of 10. So a moment of peace surrounded by books quenches their thirst for learning, for understanding, for discovering the world. It is a small thing, not nearly enough; but perhaps there is something small about what is essential in life. Perhaps this little place of safety we offer them during their childhood will provide a point of reference for them to build their character. Perhaps it will not be enough. But perhaps it will be a starting point for them to build on.
For J.C., the solution is to “take responsibility for yourself, not to rely on other people”. He talks of a change in attitude. “We can’t place the burden of our existence on others. We can never rely on just one person.” The way he sees it, there are people who live only to eat. They have stopped dreaming. That’s not life, he says, knowing that when you make a meal with the food you have begged for today, you have to do the same thing tomorrow. They no longer have dreams or ambitions. In his opinion, the young people need to embark on a project; then they can be supported as they participate in something concrete like a training course or a micro-business. “But giving someone money when they come crying, that’s wrong. That makes them depend on you.”
This is why I immediately felt a connection with him: in our own way, each of us wants to give these children the opportunity to dream so that they themselves can build their future out of their own dreams.
And maybe, for some of these children and young people in terrible distress, money provides the security they need to get them back on the path to education. The centre also offers them the opportunity to attend a school with a timetable adapted to life on the street. In fact, through this approach, many of them have succeeded in learning to read, and have received a Certificate of Primary Elementary Studies. What is certain is that J.C. challenges us and asks us to go further when we meet people, to look for a way that will put them back on their feet and allow them to stand dignified and proud.
